Review: THE GREAT GATSBY at CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre
This production runs through August 23rd.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel of money and desire in New York, is a classic among classics, practically carved into the Mount Rushmore of American literature. For decades, it has been a mainstay of American (and Canadian) literature curricula, where its sexual encounters are gingerly euphemised by bespectacled high school teachers and every theme, symbol, and motif is dutifully pulled apart for analysis. But really: how is a story this full of desire, glamour, excess, and violence supposed to fit inside a five-paragraph essay? My God, man. A musical seems much more appropriate.
And THE GREAT GATSBY is most definitely not your high school lit class. At the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, the music is loud, the dancing is hot, and the passions are hotter.
Taking at least one cue from Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film, THE GREAT GATSBY plunges enthusiastically into the champagne excess of the Roaring Twenties. The familiar story remains: Nick Carraway, a Midwestern newcomer to New York, finds himself drawn into the orbit of old-money Tom Buchanan, glamorous Daisy, and the enigmatic Jay Gatsby. But here Fitzgerald’s more restrained prose gives way to the kind of brightness and boldness that only Broadway - where the musical premiered in 2024 and continues to run - can provide. Costumes sparkle, scenery glimmers, lights flash, and music blasts. What Fitzgerald's prose might convey through a glance, a gesture, or a carefully placed symbol, THE GREAT GATSBY delivers with tap dancing and a sustained high note.
If subtlety is your thing - and I am conscious that the aforementioned bespectacled English teachers make up a sizeable portion of the theatregoing public - you may find THE GREAT GATSBY, for lack of a more elegant quip, a lot. One musical number barely finishes before the next begins. An intimate confession scarcely has time to land before the production sweeps it away with another major-key showstopper. Characters who live in Fitzgerald’s pauses and ambiguities are afforded comparatively few of either. The production fires off metaphorical and literal fireworks almost until the curtain hits the stage.
But perhaps “a lot” is precisely the point. Would Gatsby himself want a tasteful, restrained evening at the theatre? Would Daisy? Tom? Nick? Hell no. They would want champagne, beautiful clothes, beautiful people, loud music, and the biggest spectacle money could buy.
On that count, THE GREAT GATSBY understands its characters perfectly. Above all else, it is fun - and that is one thing Toronto theatregoers have in common with mysterious Jazz Age millionaires: sometimes, we all just want to have a good time.
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